{"id":1766,"date":"2018-11-01T01:50:47","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T17:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/?p=1766"},"modified":"2019-05-08T00:41:27","modified_gmt":"2019-05-07T16:41:27","slug":"meal-kit-reviews-sun-basket-is-the-choice-for-environmentalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/2018\/11\/meal-kit-reviews-sun-basket-is-the-choice-for-environmentalists\/","title":{"rendered":"Meal Kit Reviews: Sun Basket is the Choice for Environmentalists"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sun Basket<\/a> is a Bay Area based meal kit subscription service started by a former sous chef at Slanted Door, a high end Vietnamese restaurant in San Francisco (one I’ve never been to).\u00a0 It aims to distinguish itself by catering to special diets (Mediterranean, paleo, gluten-free, vegetarian, vegan, etc.) and by offering organic produce and “responsibly sourced” meats and fish.\u00a0 It gets top rates in many professional reviews, but it gets very mixed user reviews on Yelp.<\/a><\/p>\n

Sun Basket<\/a> is a premium service and I tried it only for one week.\u00a0 I paid $32 for 3 meal kits (the regular price is $72). These are the kits I got:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\nSteak and roasted sweet potato with scallion-ginger relish<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

A simple meal that you don’t need a kit to recreate.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

<\/td>\nLamb korma with sweet potato mash and toasted naan<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Not really a korma, but the lamb was tasty<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

<\/td>\nBasket Salt-and-pepper tofu stir-fry with glass noodles<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Tofu is tofu, but the noodles and sauce were good.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

So far, I’ve made a single recipe from Sun Basket, though I’ll probably try more of their vegan recipes in the future:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\nSpanish paella with tofu, mushrooms, and peas<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This was a totally miss but it was my fault as I ended up substituting for most of the key ingredients.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

These are my general observations.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Sun Basket’s Kits Are Good but not Great<\/strong><\/p>\n

We weren’t wowed by any of the Sun Basket kits we tried. They all produced perfectly acceptable food, but nothing that we’d want to have again.\u00a0 This may be a product of what I chose, however.\u00a0Please bear in mind that my experience so far is very limited.\u00a0 I will try cooking more Sun Basket recipes on my own and see if they change my opinion.<\/p>\n

Sun Basket’s offerings are great for people with special diets<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have a vegan daughter and finding vegan recipes in other services has been very difficult.\u00a0 Sun Basket offers three vegan choices a week, and some of their vegetarian fare can be adapted as well.\u00a0 They also offer diabetes-friendly meals, paleo meals, gluten free meals and a bunch of other choices.<\/p>\n

They are expensive for a meal delivery service<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sun Basket’s classic plan of 3 meals per week for 2 people costs $72 a week, or $12 pp\/per meal.\u00a0 There is a $1 pp\/pm discount if you order kits for 4 people.\u00a0 This means it’s priced at the highest end of the spectrum.\u00a0 On the plus side, they feature organic produce, “responsibly sourced” meats and they don’t charge a premium for “gourmet” recipes.<\/p>\n

Portions are just the right size<\/strong><\/p>\n

So far, the portions we tried were the right size for us for dinner.\u00a0 We weren\u2019t left full or hungry. We had some leftovers from the side dishes.<\/p>\n

For a meal kit service, it’s more environmentally friendly.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let’s be real here.\u00a0 If you care about the environment, meal kits are probably not for you.\u00a0 The main issue with these services is not so much the price as the enormous amount of packaging materials that are not recyclable, chief among them being the freezer packs<\/a>.\u00a0 Blue Apron alone causes almost 200K tons of freezer packs to end in landfills every year – and to them you have to add the other meal kit services.\u00a0 Meal kits generally come in recyclable boxes, but sometimes they are also lined with bulky and non-recyclable packing material, which again will needlessly end up in the landfill.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Sun Basket takes their packaging seriously.\u00a0 Not only is their packing material a sturdy paper bag filled with shredded paper – so totally recyclable (though the market for mixed paper recycling has recently collapsed<\/a>).\u00a0 More importantly,\u00a0their freezer packs are made from a solution of something like 98% water and 2% cotton fibers which makes them conpostable.\u00a0 \u00a0The plastic bags are not really recyclable<\/a> – they are in theory, but nobody is buying them so they are being sent to landfills -, but they are much less bulky than the rest of the materials.<\/p>\n

While I\u2019ve been lucky with Sun Basket not everyone has been<\/strong><\/p>\n

I got one box from Sun Basket with three meal kits.\u00a0 All the kits\u00a0 contained all the ingredients necessary to make the meals and none of the items were spoiled.\u00a0 However, other people report receiving\u00a0missing and spoiled ingredients<\/a>.\u00a0 People also complain about bad customer service, delayed deliveries and difficulties cancelling.<\/p>\n

Sun Basket is a subscription service<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sun Basket offers a$40 discount for your first week’s voice, but if you sign up you are enrolled in the weekly service.\u00a0 \u00a0So if you subscribe, make sure you cancel in time before you are charged for the next week.\u00a0 Better yet, skip the following weeks of meals so you have time to cancel after you actually try the kits.<\/p>\n

Suspending and cancelling is a breeze<\/strong><\/p>\n

Despite the complaints about having problem cancelling, I was able to easily suspend shipments and then cancel my account online.<\/p>\n

If you want to subscribe to Sun Basket<\/strong><\/p>\n

You can use\u00a0this link<\/a>\u00a0and get $40 off your first box.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sun Basket is a Bay Area based meal kit subscription service started by a former sous chef at Slanted Door, a high end Vietnamese restaurant in San Francisco (one I’ve never been to).\u00a0 It aims to distinguish itself by catering to special diets (Mediterranean, paleo, gluten-free, vegetarian, vegan, etc.) and by offering organic produce and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[388],"tags":[398],"class_list":["post-1766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meal-kits","tag-sun-basket","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1766\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marga.org\/foodblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}